


an atmosphere of glass

by windupclock



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M, Missing Scene, this is INDECENTLY tender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 04:17:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19369603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windupclock/pseuds/windupclock
Summary: The last night on Earth.





	an atmosphere of glass

Crowley sat first, sliding in against the window; he liked to rest his cheek against the cool glass and feel the movement of the bus. He expected the usual arrangement: Aziraphale would sit one row in front of him, or one behind, depending on how he was feeling that day. Far enough off for plausible deniability, but close enough to hear. Close enough for Aziraphale’s hand to brush against Crowley’s elbow where it was draped along the back of a seat. Close enough to pretend it was an accident.

Instead, Aziraphale dropped down next to him. Thigh against thigh.

Crowley’s hand was lying on his thigh, his thumb curled into his pocket, and Aziraphale’s brushed against it briefly, and then—

Gentle fingers curled around his wrist, turning his hand upright, and a palm pressed against his. Thick fingers threading through his own. A thumb against the back of his hand.

Holding hands. Here. On a bus.

Crowley glanced at Aziraphale out of the corner of his eye, not wanting to look directly for fear of bursting the tender bubble that hung suspended between them. Bizarrely, he thought of a line Aziraphale had read to him four hundred years ago: _For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss._

(For what it was worth, he still preferred the funny ones. But there was something about that one that had spoken to him back then. Maybe it was the crack in Aziraphale’s voice when he’d read the end, the tears he brushed away and Crowley didn’t comment on. Maybe, more likely, it was the subject matter.)

They had held hands before: clasped briefly above the center console of the Bentley; late at night in the flat above the bookshop; in an empty movie theater when he took Aziraphale to see _A Streetcar Named Desire_. This, however, was a different creature.

They weren’t alone, and here was Aziraphale, hand in his.

* * *

The first thing you realize on the last night of the rest of your life: you have nothing left to lose.

* * *

“Come on in, angel,” Crowley said, propping open the door with one foot. Aziraphale stepped past him, his hand brushing the hem of Crowley’s shirt. 

Crowley swallowed dryly and closed the door behind him, took two steps forward, and promptly bumped smack into Aziraphale’s back. He made a grumpy noise of complaint and rubbed at his shoulder, but the angel was rooted to the ground, glancing around at every stark corner of the flat, and it hit Crowley that this was the first time he had been here.

Christ, he wished he’d tidied up beforehand.

His flat had always had a perfunctory shine to it, the kind that never got scuffed away no matter how long Crowley lived there, because, well, Crowley didn’t live there. Sure, it was where he slept (when he felt the need to) and where he worked (when he felt the need to), and he had, arguably, paid for it, but there was nothing lived in about it. There was nothing that really said that this was the home of Anthony J. Crowley, please take your shoes off at the door, thank you very much.

There was nothing, really, that said it wasn’t Hell.

Aziraphale had clearly cottoned on to the painful clinical aura of it all, the stark lack of love in any of the nooks and crannies. His nose wrinkled, just a hair, but he didn’t say anything about it. He turned to smile over his shoulder at Crowley, a small, fragile thing, and then he cleared his throat. “I presume you have a living room?” he said, a touch of wryness in his voice.

“Oi,” Crowley said, indignant, and then paused. “I think I do.”

“Well, why don’t we endeavor to find out?”

There was a moment of stillness, their eyes reluctant to let go of one another, before Crowley coughed and gestured to the hallway. “Right,” Aziraphale murmured, and headed in that direction.

Crowley followed him into the corridor where he kept the plants. _Don’t you dare embarrass me_ , he thought as fervently as he could, glaring at the quivering leaves. _If I see so much as a hint of a spot…_

He left the sentence hanging, the threat implied. It was a trick he’d picked up along the way. The plants could fill in the blank for themselves, and whatever they came up with would likely scare them more than anything Crowley could say.

(This was likely not the best strategy to apply to plants, which are notorious for their lack of imagination, but it was good practice regardless.)

Technically speaking, Crowley could have miracled away any leaf spots without Aziraphale noticing so much as a whiff of it. There was, however, a deeply stubborn part of him which outright refused to use his powers on the plants, and it had won out for forty years now. He wasn’t about to give up now.

Aziraphale shivered. This wouldn’t have been unusual, per se, as Aziraphale’s body had never had the best circulation, except that Crowley’s flat was warm, warmer than it had any right to be (his heating bill, if he ever paid such a thing, would be truly staggering), because old serpentine habits like cold-bloodedness died hard.

Which meant that Aziraphale’s shiver had nothing to do with the actual temperature of the room, and rather how it felt. Its _ephemeral aura_. 

Crowley’s stomach twinged with horror.

He’d lost his angelic sense for love a few millennia ago, but he could feel spooky. He recognized a nice burst of terror and anguish when one brushed by him, and, he was suddenly realizing, this room was full of them.

Aziraphale glanced over at him. The  _ oh, Crowley  _ was written in the open-book scrunch of his eyebrows without him having to say a word. Crowley cleared his throat and jerked his head towards the doorway.

_He struck the fear of God into them. More precisely, the fear of Crowley._

He had never thought of himself as afraid, but that was exactly it, wasn’t it? Terrified, shivering, quaking in his snakeskin boots. A fledgling cast out of the nest too soon, before it could find its wings, before the ground could become anything other than a punishment. Still scared, still angry, still raw.

Fuck, he had molded his plants into frightened little effigies of himself.

* * *

The second thing you realize on the last night of the rest of your life: you have yet to forgive them.

* * *

Aziraphale gave a delicate little cough. He let Crowley usher him on through, into what passed for a living room, not that much living happened in there. Dust clung to the chairs (two of them, set opposite each other; Crowley was a cynical optimist, or vice versa). Aziraphale snapped his fingers, and it swept itself neatly away into the ether. They each sank into one of the chairs, Crowley taking the left and Aziraphale the right.

There was a little table between them, to the side. “I don’t suppose you’ve got anything to drink?” Aziraphale asked hopefully. Crowley snorted and waved his hand in the table’s direction, his fingers fluttering. A corked bottle and two glasses popped up on its surface. Aziraphale took the bottle and made a pleased noise in his throat.

“What do you suppose’ll happen tomorrow?” asked Crowley, as Aziraphale poured the first glass. The angel looked at him sidelong.

“Well,” he said uncertainly. “I imagine we’ll be punished.”

“Brilliant deduction, angel,” Crowley drawled. Aziraphale frowned and pushed the glass in his direction. Crowley grabbed it and took a long swig, neatly draining half of it. “What was it Nutter said? We’ll be playing with fire?”

Aziraphale rummaged around in his coat for a moment and produced the scrap of prophecy. Their fingers brushed as he handed it over. Crowley swallowed, rough and dry. “Choose your faces wisely,” he murmured, scrutinizing the charred paper. “Wonder what she meant by that.”

The angel shrugged helplessly. “The woman wasn’t exactly forthcoming. Well, except for when she called me foolish and told me my cocoa was getting cold. That was fairly straightforward, I’ll give her that.”

“She did not,” Crowley said, delighted.

“She did.”

“Was it?”

“Oh, nearly solid. Gelatinous. Ended up having to toss it out.”

“Tragic,” Crowley said, shaking his head in sympathy. “D’you think this one’s about us?”

Aziraphale shrugged again. “Hard to say, really. I suppose it might be. We were playing with fire, after all, with the…” He made a gesture with his hands like swinging a sword.

“Yeah, but… if it’s about today, it’s a bit of a rubbish prophecy, really. And what’s this about faces? How’re we meant to choose our faces?”

“Well, I don’t know!” Aziraphale snapped. “I’m hardly a prophet, am I?”

 “Grumpy prophet,” Crowley muttered. He downed the rest of his wine. “Listen, angel, there’s gotta be a reason this one fell out of the book, hasn’t there?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, y’know, the most psychic woman in all of human history… she had to  _ know  _ which one of those buggers would, er, make its escape, right? So, this one’s got to be for us,” Crowley said, warming to this logic as he spoke. “It’s not about today. It’s for tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Aziraphale asked, sounding like he was catching Crowley’s drift but wasn’t especially fond of what he had in his hands.

“You know, judgement day. Our reckoning and all.” When Aziraphale opened his mouth, Crowley held a hand up to head him off. “What’s the punishment in Heaven for treason, angel?”

Aziraphale looked down at his fingernails for a long moment. “Hellfire, I believe,” he murmured, almost quiet enough for Crowley to miss it. “I’m not sure. I’ve heard—you know. Rumors. No angel’s ever been  _ charged  _ with treason. The others—well, the rest of you Fell.”

“Sauntered,” Crowley corrected, in a mumble of his own. Aziraphale flashed a fond glare at him, but his face quickly went flat again.

“Are you suggesting we—”

“Choose our faces wisely? I think  _ Agnes _ is suggesting that.”

They looked at each other for a long moment in mutual understanding, Aziraphale’s face trembling with something Crowley couldn’t quite recognize.

“But what if—”

“Best not to dwell on that, angel,” Crowley said. He gave a sad smile and raised his empty glass, clinking it against Aziraphale’s. “Come on. We can leave that for tomorrow. Right now… I think you should pour me some more.”

“A solid plan, my dear,” Aziraphale said, and he did just that.

* * *

The third thing you realize on the last night of your life: you aren’t ready for it to be over.

* * *

A certain number of hours later, they had looped through profound inebriation and worked their way back around to sobriety. Crowley was slouched down in his chair, his legs sprawled and tangled with Aziraphale’s, which were outstretched to meet his. Meeting in the middle. There was a certain poetic elegance to it.

“Let’s go to bed, angel,” Crowley said, and then blushed, despite having meant bed in the most literal sense.

“You have a bed?” Aziraphale asked dubiously.

“’Course I have a bed.” Crowley snorted. “C’mon. I’ll prove it. I’ll show you.”

He took Aziraphale’s hand when they stood. Aziraphale glanced briefly down but didn’t say anything, only squeezed a little tighter. “Show me this bedroom of yours, then,” Aziraphale said, and then stammered for a second. “Er—oh, shut up,” he said, glaring at Crowley, who was outright snickering.

Crowley did, in fact, have a bedroom, in the most basic sense: it was a room which had a bed and little else. The sheets were black, and the pillows matched. They weren’t silk, as one might have expected, but cotton, which was warmer and less slippery, altogether more comfortable for a snake in human shape. Aziraphale stopped in the doorway and turned to grin at Crowley. “Have I ever told you that you are very predictable, dear boy?” Crowley swatted at him in response.

Most of Crowley’s clothes were manifested out of the air, spun from pure will. This was the case for his favorite suit, and for his pajamas, but not for his sunglasses, which were sacred. He took those off and laid them on the bedside table, and waved a hand down his form, swapping his clothes for a shirt and loose pants patterned with scotty dogs.

When he glanced up, Aziraphale was pulling his undershirt over his head, exposing his stomach without a care in the world, and Crowley was deeply grateful he wasn’t holding anything.

“Say,” Aziraphale said, with far too casual a tone, “you don’t have any actual clothes I could borrow, do you?” When Crowley managed a shake of his head, he sighed. “No, I didn’t think so.” He shucked off his pants, which gave Crowley a series of rapid conniptions, and then snapped his fingers, draping himself in pajamas that resembled Crowley’s, except the shirt was long-sleeved and the pants had poodles.

“Nice,” Crowley said, and then cleared his throat loudly.

Aziraphale crawled into Crowley’s bed without a care in the world, pulling the sheets back and fluffing up the pillow. He laid down and looked horrifically at ease there, smiling at Crowley as he tucked the sheets back up.

Crowley laid down next to him. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest. It was very inconvenient, and so loud he was worried Aziraphale might hear.

“Good night, my dear,” Aziraphale murmured. “Mind turning out the lights?”

With a snap, Crowley did. “Night, angel,” he mumbled, pulling his blanket up to his chin.

* * *

The fourth thing you realize on the last night of your life: you can’t lose him.

* * *

Bleak morning light filled the room when Crowley woke up. He was warm, warm and comfortable, and he snuggled closer to the soft thing he was curled around, and then he froze.

His brain kicked into first gear: the soft thing was Aziraphale, who was snoring very quietly, and who Crowley was fully tucked around like a koala bear, one leg thrown over his hip.

Quickly, in the blink of an eye, Crowley disentangled himself and scuttled to the opposite edge of the bed. Fuck. He sat up and rubbed his eyes (demons didn’t get sleep in the corners of their eyes, because demons didn’t generally sleep, but his eyelids still got heavy). With a wave of his hand, he was wearing his regular clothes again, and he reluctantly reached out and shook Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Angel,” he murmured softly. “Time to get up.”

Aziraphale groaned and turned over, opening one eye and staring at Crowley like he was a puzzle Aziraphale was trying his best to solve.

“Morning,” Crowley said. “It’s time to face the music.”

* * *

The first thing you realize on the last morning of your life: you aren’t going to lose him.

* * *

They stood in Crowley’s foyer, unable to stay and unwilling to leave. They were going to have to face the music. They were going to be playing with fire.

Agnes was kind to try to help, but there was no way to avoid getting burned.

“I suppose this is it, old friend,” Aziraphale said. He raised his hand and left it there for a moment, his eyes meeting Crowley’s.

Crowley stepped forward after a second and knocked their foreheads together, his breath coming out in a rush as he gripped the back of Aziraphale’s neck, holding him firm, reminding himself he was solid. His hands slid to Aziraphale’s cheeks, cupping them, and Aziraphale’s came up to hold them.

There was too much left unsaid between them. Confessions and declarations and mundane, essential conversations.  _ I’m scared  _ and  _ me too  _ and  _ if this doesn’t work, I need you to know I love you _ and  _ me too _ .

Crowley closed his eyes slowly, shuddering. He made a promise, silent on his lips: there would be time, later. They would have a later. When it was all over, they’d have to deal with eternity, and it would be theirs together, and they could say everything, and they wouldn’t have to be afraid anymore.

When they pulled apart and stepped back, Crowley looked up at his own face, and Aziraphale smiled back at him with Crowley’s mouth.

“See you on the other side, angel,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale’s voice came out.


End file.
